Faerie Marked (Fae Academy for Halflings Book 1)

by Brea Viragh

  Losing precious seconds, I tried to remember the incantation phrase. Too many wrong attempts. I heard the man getting closer, heard his boots echoing closer and louder.

  Tavi, think!

  “Elaphrium,” I whispered.

  At last I managed to get out the right words for the spell and the stones melted away, revealing the pitch-black interior of the secret tunnel. I made it inside with seconds to spare and said the words a second time. The stone closed behind me and, though muffled, I heard the man pass by the other side without noticing my disappearance.

  A dull ache flared across my back. It spread to my biceps and down the sides of my chest. I must have been tensing harder than I thought, because everything hurt. I took a moment to try and get my pulse down from heart attack territory. Shaken to the core.

  The killer was a shifter.

  No one but a shifter could have kept up with me, especially not when I let my own wolf out to play. And he’d stunk like one of my kind.

  He had to be the killer, because no one else on campus had a reason to chase me, to single me out. Because I’d gotten the top spot and like an idiot left myself open for an attack by walking alone at night. Reason enough, right?

  Still, why would someone put in time and effort to kill off probationary first-year students? It didn’t make any sense to me. I leaned my head against the stone and winced, clutching my books tighter to my chest. Dear God. Someone wanted to kill me.

  Did this mean there were more shifters hidden at the academy? And if there were, then how did they avoid detection? The only other one I knew about was the detective assigned to the case. Wilson. But he hadn’t given me any other vibe beyond disgruntled and maybe a little pissed off. Also, the scents didn’t match. He certainly hadn’t seemed like a killer.

  Then again, appearances could be deceiving.

  Losing track of time, I caught my breath then followed the hidden passageway back to my dorm room, and climbed into bed still shaking. No one commented on the cobwebs decorating my hair. Not even Persephone, much to my surprise. She stared at me long enough that any other night I would have felt uncomfortable. Tonight, I just didn’t care.

  Ducking my head to hide, I crawled under the covers and fumbled around until I found the two remaining vials of potion from Barbara.

  One left, now.

  I thought about it as I swallowed the contents down the hatch, watching my skin crawl and shift and dull my shifter nature, like crawling beneath a hot, wet wool blanket. The potion didn’t take my fear with it, sadly. No, that was left to me in its entirety. Apparently, my body and mind wanted me to have the whole experience of being afraid.

  One vial and too much time until the end of the semester rolled around. I needed to at least make it to next weekend, when I had days off and could leave the campus.

  With what car?

  I’d junked the Toyota and wrote it off as a loss. Maybe I could ask Mike—

  My jaw locked. No. I refused to ask him to drive me anywhere, let alone bring him near Barbara. Or the rest of my pack. He’d have too many questions. I didn’t want to be beholden to him, anyway.

  I fell into a dreamless sleep and woke with the sun. Melia found me soon after I showered.

  “There’s a party the upperclassmen are throwing tomorrow,” she began excitedly. She’d cornered me in my dorm so I had less of a chance to tell her no and make an excuse to escape.

  I shrugged into a clean shirt, Melia standing near the windows with her gaze purposely averted. “A party for what?” I asked.

  “To celebrate not getting cut from the school.” The way she said it told me I should have known already. “The upperclassmen throw one every winter around this time. It’s kind of one of those things that’s grown and grown until even the staff know the Friday night after the lottery is reserved.” She pushed herself onto the desk beneath the window, tucking her knees under her chin. “You know how it goes.”

  “I guess I do,” I joked. I didn’t want her to know. I was afraid. Afraid to be around so many people with a target painted on my back. “A party could be fun.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course it will be fun. This is my fourth one and I can tell you it’s a pretty low-key affair but there’s always something exciting. Basically, we all use this to blow off a little steam and socialize. It’s like a break from the rigors of classes. There will probably be alcohol. It seems like most of the upperclassmen have the off-campus hookup and use it to dazzle the rest of us.”

  I liked how even though she was in her fourth year Melia didn’t lump herself in with the rest of her upperclassmen. “I like the way you think.”

  I grabbed my hairbrush, running it down the length of my still-damp hair. My school blazer hung on a peg near my bunk. After braiding the strands, I reached for the jacket, sliding my arms home.

  “You’ll come?” she pressed.

  What could it hurt? Maybe it would give me a chance to blow off a little steam. And surely no one would try to come after me in a room full of people. There would be too many eyes, too many witnesses, too many bodies to get in the way of making a clean kill.

  Which made the party one of the safest places I could be, really.

  “Yeah, I’ll come.”

  I managed to squeak through classes on Friday even with my attention fractured in every direction. Later, with the moon riding high and me ducking low to avoid its light, I followed Melia into one of the upperclassmen common rooms wearing our “casual clothes.” She had on black leggings, offset by a rich purple sweater hanging down to mid-thigh.

  I felt like a bum in comparison. I’d gone with a light-gray long-sleeved t-shirt and a black skirt, plus my ever-present ratty Converses.

  She pushed open a door on the second floor to reveal a brightly lit circular space decorated in verdant greens and natural browns. A plush leather sectional sat in the center of the room facing a massive fireplace with a mantel made of carved wood.

  “I’ve never been in here,” I murmured.

  Melia nodded. “This is the common room for my dorm. Nice, right? I forget this is the first time you’ve seen it. You always want to study in the library, you never hang out with me here.”

  “I’m sorry,” I replied automatically.

  We made ourselves comfortable, a pair of upperclassmen pressing drinks into our hands before moving off to the rest of the party. Talk about service. Taking a sip, I welcomed the little rush of heat from the spiked punch while I kept an eye out for familiar faces. Well, two familiar faces.

  Mike and Roman were not among the crowd.

  My brows drew down and I took a long sip. Was it wrong to be bothered that Mike wasn’t here? I really thought he’d want to celebrate the achievements of our class, not be petulant and standoffish. He’d made it through the lottery the same as the rest of us.

  I guess it irked him how I’d done better than him. More than I thought it would. Or should.

  Still, I was determined to have fun with or without him. I followed Melia deeper into the room, stopping to say hello to several people I knew from my class.

  I did have fun. One drink turned into two. There were lots of people to speak to, more than just the perfunctory congratulatory conversation. For the first time since arriving at the school, I was included. The feeling of fitting in warmed a knot of ice inside of me I hadn’t known I was carrying around.

  Standing in the center of the conglomeration of fellow halflings, I was at ease.

  Even with Dawn and the rest of my shifter mates back at home, I’d never felt like I really belonged. I’d always been on guard against the chance someone would pry too deeply into my past. That they would look at me and see something wrong with me.

  Here, no one saw anything. Yes, I still had things to hide, and yes, if someone looked too closely they would discover darkness and lies, but…

  I clung to the but.

  Melia and I danced together until my legs burned and sweat beaded along my brow. She took a break long bef
ore I did, seeing a boy she liked and dipping out to flirt with him while I continued to move, to sway. She deserves it, I thought to myself, turning in a smooth circle. She deserved to find a guy to flirt with, to snuggle with, because she was an amazing person.

  Hell, I was an amazing person too! Soon I would find my own guy to flirt with, someone appropriate. My brain conjured a picture of Mike and effectively soured the rest of my good feelings toward dancing. Mike didn’t want to flirt with me. He didn’t even want to be around me.

  Finally, I got too hot, my head swimming and my vision fuzzy, and decided to take a break of my own. I stumbled toward the door to the balcony, still holding my drink. There were several balconies jutting off this floor of the castle and this one was more decorative than functional, only large enough to hold a handful of people at one time.

  I craved the fresh air. I wasn’t sure how it felt to be drunk, never having indulged this much in the past, but from the delicious warmth curling in my stomach to the fuzz between my ears, I thought I might be close to it tonight. Safe, though. The party continued to rage behind me and there were people everywhere. People who would watch my back and make sure nothing happened to me.

  I leaned against the cool railing, letting some of the heat from my body drain away with a sigh. I deserved this, I thought drowsily. I deserved a night of fun where I didn’t have to worry about mirrors, or garlic, or crystal balls. Where I didn’t have to worry about Mike and his bad attitude, or hooded killers chasing me down the halls.

  I didn’t have to worry about dead students or wolves on the hunt tracking me down in the service of Kendrick Grimaldi.

  My face melted down into a scowl at the appearance of his name in my head. He didn’t belong there. Not tonight, not ever. There was no way he could find me, not even if he put his best trackers on my scent. I was long gone. A ghost in the wind.

  I felt someone move up behind me and smiled. “How’s it going with Barry?” I asked Melia. “Are you making any headway yet or is he still being stubbornly resistant to your charms?” My words slurred slightly. I didn’t care.

  But I certainly started to care when I turned around and the face I saw wasn’t Melia’s. It wasn’t a face at all but a black hood and mask covering the man’s features.

  The killer had found me.

  25

  I reacted without thinking—pure adrenaline—moving to the side and slamming my fist into the man’s throat. I kicked out with my leg and hooked his right knee with my left.

  The guy went down. I had the element of surprise on my side because he hadn’t expected me to retaliate with any physical force. Scream, probably, but not try to break his nose off his face.

  Before he hit the floor, I spun around, going for the doors now closed behind us. My fingers clamped onto the metal handle and jerked it forward.

  It cost me seconds I didn’t have, not with the space too small to maneuver. Especially when the doors wouldn’t open.

  Locked.

  The man caught me around the ankle and jerked. Instead of giving in to the motion, I stubbornly planted my left leg and mule-kicked with the one he held, hammering my foot into whatever part of him I could reach. His chest, as it turned out. He tried to pitch forward, to adjust his weight and balance to avoid the kick. Then swung his arms up to grab me around the midsection.

  I heard his labored breathing. Kept one hand on the door and reached back to knuckle-punch him with the other.

  Everything stopped when his teeth bit into the side of my thigh. Ripped clean through the fabric of my skirt and sliced through skin, puncturing deep enough to draw blood.

  I screamed then, wincing at the flash of pain. In the darkness, I couldn’t see well enough to figure out my next move, not against the muscular build of the man attacking me.

  A sweep of his hand knocked me to my knees and I landed hard. Bones jarred. My teeth clacked together. He moved with me without releasing his teeth from my thigh.

  My head pounded and my ribs ached with every inhalation, pushed down on my stomach. Luckily, nothing seemed to be broken.

  I cupped my hands together in front of me, muttering an incantation under my breath. I didn’t have a chance of winning with brute strength. Not against a wolf like this and not with my spell intact, the moon hidden behind a sky overcast with clouds. But I could use magic—somewhat—and odds were good he could not.

  I twisted long enough to send the spell flying, and a blast of magic hit the man square in the chest. He stumbled back and knocked against the side of the building. I caught the flash of yellow eyes through the fabric of his mask a second before he charged forward again. I raised my forearm to shield and his teeth bit deep. Blood dripped down from the marks.

  Anger warred with fear. This guy thought he could come here and use his wolf against me?

  I struggled to form a second spell, one to levitate him away from me and send him flying.

  I wasn’t fast enough.

  With a growl, the man scooped me up. And tossed me over the balcony.

  The night air buzzed around me on my way down, down.

  There wasn’t a chance to think. Not a moment for the full realization of my fall to reach me. I hit the ground hard, only one story but enough to hear a bone snap in my arm accompanied by a fierce rush of fire. My head bounced off the grass and for a moment I saw nothing but black as I struggled to breathe.

  The clouds shifted. The full moon gazed down at me, a familiar sight I’d been avoiding since I arrived at the academy. And my spell broke in an instant.

  But after the blow to my head I didn’t have enough logic left to realize the full implications. The scent of my own blood filled my nostrils and my stomach churned. I couldn’t do anything other than struggle to draw air into my body, struggle to stay conscious. I lost the fight soon enough and the sounds of footsteps came closer and closer.

  He’s here to finish the job…

  I was alive.

  I thought I was alive, anyway. The world slowly came into focus with a swell of agony that brought my jaws clenching together. Soon reality shifted and merged into familiar blue skin I hadn’t seen since my first night at the academy.

  Nurse Julie blinked at me, her gangly arms hanging at her sides. Not the killer, then.

  “Oh, you’re awake.”

  She unwrapped the blood pressure monitor with a snap of Velcro and set it down on her station.

  “Where…” I tried to say. My teeth felt loose and I struggled to form the words, running my tongue over my lower teeth to check for anything shattered there. The last thing I remembered was lying on the lawn, expecting death.

  “Don’t try to talk right now, Tavi, just take it easy,” she warned. “Another student saw you fall off the balcony and immediately ran to get me. I brought you here.”

  I sat up with enough force to send another swell of pain rushing to my head and I nearly howled, pushing my palms against my eyes to keep the world from spinning.

  “Miss Alderidge, did you not hear me say to take it easy? Do you have a death wish? You plummeted over a balcony, broke your arm, and gave yourself a pretty nasty little concussion,” Nurse Julie said stiffly. Her wings rustled in agitation. “Do. Not. Move. Stay down until I can get you checked out. Now hold still or I’ll be forced to strap you to the table.”

  I laid my head back down on the thin pillow, blinking through the pain as Nurse Julie took my arm and prepped it for IV.

  “Oh, God!” I bolted upright a second time, ripping at the IV needle.

  “Miss Alderidge, calm yourself!”

  I was in direct overhead light. With Nurse Julie administering pain medication through the IV. And my last potion spell had broken while I was out cold.

  I was both halves of myself, thoroughly, without the spell to protect me. Which meant she saw my true nature and still treated me, had probably taken my blood and tested it to make sure …what?

  I panicked. The nurse knew. The jig was up. I was going to be kicked out of school.
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  “I have to go,” I managed, swinging my legs over the side of the table despite the mild concussion and the dizziness that would have brought an elephant to its knees.

  Get out, get out, get out. I had to get out of here and quickly, before the Headmaster came for me, to send me back to Uncle Will.

  To send me back to Kendrick.

  “Miss Alderidge, please.” Strong hands fell on my shoulders to steady me. “There’s no need to worry. Try to relax.”

  It took me the longest time to recognize her smile. Even longer to know what it meant and why she was looking at me with such focus. In comfort, in camaraderie.

  “You’re not the only one who can go furry in this joint. Oh, stop looking at me. No more despair on your pretty face,” she continued with a waggle of her brows. “That’s how you get wrinkles. I won’t be telling anyone unless I want to out myself, too.”

  She wouldn’t…wait, what?

  I slowed my hysteria enough to lean back and take her in for the first time. The blue skin, the wings. And…a werewolf shifter? The two pictures didn’t compute to me.

  “I don’t understand,” I said stupidly.

  “Oh, honey. You think you’re the only one in the world looking for a way out of bad circumstances?” Nurse Julie sighed, drawing over her wheeled stool and placing it so she and I were closer to eye level. “I know all about pack relations and the strict guidelines placed on females. Trust me, I know.”

  “But you don’t look like a shifter,” I tried to tell her, wincing when she took my non-broken arm and ran some gauze soaked with disinfectant over the wounds. They would heal soon enough. Once I got my strength back and some food in my stomach.

  “You mean the wings? The skin?” She shrugged her shoulders and those wings rolled out to their full length, nearly touching each wall and reflecting the light in shades of rainbow brilliance. “Yes, they were a gift from my father before he ran off. Some species of Fae are notorious lotharios. He was one of them, and he left me with my mother, never to be seen again. There really aren’t a lot of options for females in the pack, especially for someone like me, because the blue skin isn’t something I can will away with magic. The wings I can make appear and disappear whenever I please, at least. My mother and I had to go to some crazy lengths to find a potion strong enough to hide my skin color.”